


Ridley Sees a Ghost

by nokia_writes



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: BABY TOZIER, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Horror, M/M, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Canon, Scary, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 20:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21416452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokia_writes/pseuds/nokia_writes
Summary: Ridley meets an old friend of her fathers.  At least, It says It’s a friend.  She herself is not quite sure.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	Ridley Sees a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> i want to be a horror writer so this is the first truly kinda scary shit i’ve written on here, let me know how i did :)

The hall is quiet, warm sunlight streaming in through the windows, honey-gold light spilling over warm brown wood. Ridley sits at the end of the hall, back against the railing that leads to the basement. Plastic toy cars sit scattered around her, little metal bodies glinting in the light.

Ridley takes one in her fist, feeling the cool metal on her palm, and places it next to where she’s hunched on the floor. She grips it and pulls her arm back before sending it bulleting down the hall, plastic wheels skittering noisily. She watches it veer to the side and hit the wall, and she laughs in innocent amusement. Ridley sends car after car down the hall, watching them all veer into unexpected places or crash into furniture. She goes to grab another one, but soon realizes she’s ran out of cars; all of them scattered amongst the hall and in doorways of other rooms.

She gets on her feet and runs crookedly to grab each one, finding some hiding under chairs and one stuck in the rug and another turned on it’s side after hitting the wall. She holds all the cars in her arms and is about to go back to her spot in the hallway when she passes the basement staircase. She pauses, and looks down into the darkness. She looks at the railing, notices how it slants downward at a steep angle. She looks down at her cars.

Experimentally, she plucks one out of her collection and places it at the top of the railing, before letting it go. It careens down the railing into the darkness, wheels spinning at a breakneck pace. She hears rather than sees it when the little car reaches the end of the railing and clatters noisily onto floor. She giggles; fun, fun, fun.

Car after car gets rocketed down the railing, Ridley even sends two at once just to see what would happen. Sadly, one of them gets knocked off and bounces down the steps. She listens to each one crash at the bottom, plastic and metal meeting the basement floor. But soon she’s out of cars again and a problem hits her. 

She doesn’t like the basement. It’s colder than the rest of the house and always dark and there are no windows and they only go down there rarely. She’s not even supposed to play down here anymore, since the last time she did she got trapped in the closet and couldn’t get out. 

Ridley creeps down the first few steps, the third one creaking under her weight. She clutched the railing and looks back up to where it’s warm and light and not scary. The basement light is all the way at the bottom. Maybe she should go get dad to help her? It’s what her dads were for; going and retrieving toys from basements where little girls were too scared to go. But he was probably working right about now, and she didn’t want to bother him. 

She looks back down the stairs, and for a single moment, something glints in the darkness, and then it’s gone. She creeps down another two steps, descending deeper and deeper into the shadowy black. When she reaches the step that’s a few stairs from the bottom, her arm darts forward to flick the light on. The basement is flooded in light and relief floods through Ridley. But then the relief is gone as soon as it came.

At the bottom of the stairs, there’s a red car, sitting up right. In front of that car is another, perfectly posed, and there’s another in front of that. The line of little plastic cars continues across the basement floor, in a funeral procession like trail.

Ridley might not know much, but she did know that the cars should not have landed like that. She had expected to have to search for them like she had upstairs, finding them in scattered corners around the basement. But instead they were laid out in an easy to follow trail, seemingly beckoning to her. 

She clutches the railing and crept down the last few steps, sticking her head out to peer around the basement. Even with the lights on, she didn’t like to be down here much. Ridley tentatively steps off the stairs, and looks at the trail of cars again. 

Hesitantly, she follows it.

The trail leads to the storage room, the door slightly ajar and the room inside filled by darkness. Ridley stares at it, and glances back at the stair case. She wants to go back up, but she’s very curious. So she takes step after step, listening to the floor moan and creak under her, picking up each car as she goes. 

The last one is just inside the storage room, and it almost feels like a trap. It sits there in the darkness, waiting for her to step forward and grab it. She holds the rest of the cars in her arms, and reaches down to pick the last one up.

Before she can grab it, a gloved hand closes around the toy and picks it up for her.

Ridley stumbles back in surprise, tripping and falling as the cars fall from her arms and scatter across the cement floor. She scrambles backwards as her eyes travel up and up to find a pair of yellow eyes looking back at her. Something leans out of the shadows, revealing itself to her.

“I’m sorry! Did I scare you Riddler?” It says.

Ridley can’t move. She wants to run, but she’s so scared she can hardly breathe.

“I didn’t mean to scare you!” It smiles at her, large, bugs-bunny teeth peeking from a red mouth. “Would you like your car back?”

It holds the little toy out to her in the palm of Its hand. She swallows, looking between the car and Its eyes. They aren’t yellow like she’d thought, they’re blue. Why had they ever looked yellow to her?”

“Yes, please.” Ridley whispers, voice shaky. It extends the toy to her a little more. 

“You have some very nice cars there, Riddler.” 

_Riddler_. Only her dads called her that.

“How do you know my name?”

“Oh!” It giggles and sits down with a jingle of what sounds like bells. “I was a friend of your daddies!”

“Really?”

“Yes! I knew them when they were kids!” It thrusts it’s gloved hand into her face and taps her nose quickly. She catches the smell of the carnival, of popcorn and cotton candy and caramel apples. But there’s something beneath it, something she can’t recognize.

“Then how come,” Ridley leans back, suspicious, “_I’ve_ never met you?”

“Well, you’re meeting me right now! I’m Pennywise. I’ve been waiting to meet you for a _long_ time.” Pennywise drags out the sound on ‘long’ and giggles again, the laugh high pitched and eerie. Ridley wants to leave. 

“I should go, I’m not supposed to play in the basement.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“My daddies say it’s not safe.”

“Well your daddies are very smart.” Something in Its voice changes, a tinge of a snarl sneaks into that voice. It sends panic alarms ringing in Ridley’s head.

“I have to go.”

“Don’t you want your car?” It holds Its hand back out, the little car resting in the middle of It’s palm. 

She looks at the car. She looks up at those blue eyes and that bugs-bunny smile. She reaches out tentatively.

And grabs it.

It closes Its hand and grins at her.

And the door behind her shuts and darkness envelopes both of them. The only thing she can see are yellow eyes.

When Eddie throws open the storage room door and flicks on the light he finds Ridley with her knees and hands scraped from the cement floor, tears streaming down her face and her throat raw from screaming. He goes to her instantly, scooping her up and combing back her hair and drying her wet, red face. She grips his shirt and cries into his shoulder as he looks down at the little toy cars scattered around the empty storage room. He holds the back of her head and shushes her softly, feeling her little heart beating rapidly in her chest.

In the shadows, behind the boxes in the back of the room, Eddie thinks he sees something move.

**Author's Note:**

> pennywise: i was a friend of ur dads
> 
> ridley’s smart ass: i don’t trust like that
> 
> leave comments and kudos!!! luv y’all!!!


End file.
